Civilization in the West

Transcription

CHAPTER
20
THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION AND THE
NAPOLEONIC ERA,
1789–1815
THE TENNIS COURT OATH: THE BEGINNING OF
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Imagine the world of Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), who
was an influential painter in the royal court in France during
the 1780s. A leading artist who studied in France and Italy and
perfected his own neoclassical style that bestowed dignity on
his historical paintings and portraits alike, he was considered
a leader of his generation by the liberal and aristocratic elite of
the late eighteenth century.
And then the world changed. Beginning in 1789 a decade
of political transformation and turmoil, beginning with the French Revolution, swept
across Europe. In June of that year King
Louis XVI summoned representatives of his
subjects to meet at the royal residence at
Versailles to deal with the fiscal crisis facing
France.
Although he was not at Versailles, David has provided us
with a strong visual record and interpretation of an event of
particular significance that transpired there on 20 June 1789.
Look at the warm sepia tones of David’s The Tennis Court
Oath, in which he captures the spirit of an important moment
in the history of democracy. This scene depicts commoners,
accompanied by some clergy (the three figures forming a circle in the middle foreground), taking an oath “never to separate, and to meet whenever circumstances demand until a
constitution of the kingdom is established and affirmed on
solid foundations.” It is a jubilant scene—one of energy and
camaraderie. It is a scene of hope.
How these men came to be standing together in an indoor
tennis court at Versailles, the seat of the French monarchy, is
a story rooted in the travails of the French king. It is also a
THE
VISUAL
RECORD
story rooted in the optimism of the Enlightenment. Three
days earlier, on 17 June 1789, the group pictured here—577
strong—declared themselves to be deputies of the National
Assembly (see p. 595). On 20 June, finding that they were
locked out of their regular meeting room by the king’s guard
and outraged by this insult, they moved to a nearby indoor
tennis court whose high walls and high windows add drama
to this scene.
The winds of change blow in from the windows on the upper left of the painting, and the common people, including
women and children, crowd the windows in witness to the
scene. Standing in the middle of the tableau, but by no means
dominating it, and facing the viewer with his arm upraised is
the deputies’ president Jean-Sylvain Bailly (1736–1793), who
leads the assembled in the recitation of the “oath.” Many
deputies indicate their enthusiastic assent with upraised arms.
Despite the sense of unity that the composition and its warm
tones convey, the viewer can find many different stories captured in the moment. In the lower left, see the old man being
carried in on a chair. Look for those who are carrying on their
own discussions with their neighbors or are caught up in their
own worlds. To the right of the speaker one person grabs his
chest with emotion, while another in the lower right corner
sits cross-armed, perhaps the sole deputy who did not sign the
oath. As well as the promise of political progress that a constitution would bring, David shows us the seeds of political dissension and in this dramatization of an event that spelled the
end of absolute monarchy and the beginning of a new concept of state power that resided in the people. The revolution
had begun.
Civilization in the West, Seventh Edition, by Mark Kishlansky, Patrick Geary, and Patricia O’Brien. Published by Longman. Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc.
ISBN 0-558-43641-2
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The Tennis Court Oath By Jacques-Louis David, 1791.
LOOKING AHEAD
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The revolution that took place in France in 1789 was not the
first political upheaval of that era, but it proved to be the most
violent. Six years earlier the American War of Independence
against Great Britain ended. Other European countries were
engaged in battles for liberty. All of these revolutions shared
elements in common, including an awareness of the same
Enlightenment philosophers and intellectuals on both sides of
the Atlantic whose works questioned existing institutions and
traditions and endorsed democracy, liberty, and equality. To
understand the revolution in France, one must understand the
distinctive nature of French society, economy, and politics in
the 50 years preceding 1789 and the crisis in the Old Regime.
In their revolution, the French experimented with parliamentary government and representative and participatory democracy, all the while contending with internal violence and foreign wars. The French Revolution ended with the coming to
power of Napoleon, who was both the heir of the revolution
and its destroyer.
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592
Chapter 20 The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era, 1789–1815
CHAPTER OUTLINE
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THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE FALL OF THE MONARCHY
The Political and Fiscal Crisis of Eighteenth-Century
France Convening the Estates-General The Outbreak
of Revolutionary Action in 1789 Declaring Political
Rights The Trials of Constitutional Monarchy
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EXPERIMENTING WITH DEMOCRACY, 1792–1799
The Revolution of the People “Terror Is the Order of the
Day” The End of the Revolution
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THE REIGN OF NAPOLEON, 1799–1815
Bonaparte Seizes Power Napoleon at War with the
European Powers The First Empire and Domestic
Reforms Decline and Fall
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THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND
THE FALL OF THE MONARCHY
The French monarchy was in a state of perpetual financial crisis across the eighteenth century. Louis XV, like his greatgrandfather Louis XIV, ruled as an absolute monarch; but he
lacked sufficient funds to run the state. He sought loans to
meet his needs as well as to pay the interest on existing debts.
Borrowing at high rates required the government to pay out
huge sums in interest and service fees on the loans that were
keeping it afloat. The outlays in turn piled the state’s indebtedness ever higher, requiring more loans, and threatening to
topple the whole financial structure of the state and the
regime itself. The monarchy tried to reduce expenditures, but
such attempts were limited by the necessity of maintaining an
effective and costly army and navy because of wars on both
the Continent and in the colonies.
The nadir of Louis XV’s reign came in 1763, with the
French defeat in the Seven Years’ War. The defeat not only left
France barren of funds, it also promoted further expenditures
for strengthening the French navy against the superior British
fleet. The king saw taxation as the only way out of the financial trap in which he now found himself.
But raising taxes was far from an easy undertaking, and it
was one that required the support of the aristocracy. The
heightened tensions between the monarch and the aristocracy
found expression in various institutions, especially the parlements, which were the 13 sovereign courts in the French judicial system, with their seats in Paris and a dozen provincial
centers. The magistrates of each parlement were members of
the aristocracy, some of them nobles of recent origin and others of long standing, depending on the locale. Following the
costly Seven Years’ War, the parlements chose to exercise the
power of refusal by blocking a proportional tax to be imposed
on nobles and commoners alike. The magistrates resisted taxation, arguing that the king was attacking the liberty of his
subjects by attempting to tax those who were exempt by
virtue of their privileged status.
The parlements claimed that they represented the nation;
the king said the nation was himself. The king repeatedly attempted to neutralize the power of the parlements by relying
instead on his own state bureaucracy, which was too weak for
the task. The king’s agents in the provinces, the intendants, were accountable directly to the central government. The intendants, as the king’s men, and the magistrates who presided in the parlements represented
contradictory claims to power. As the king’s needs in- Madame de Staël
creased in the second half of the eighteenth century, on the Ancient
Regime
the situation was becoming intolerable for those exercising power and those aspiring to rule in the name
and for the good of the nation. The financial crisis provided
the elite of notables, made up of both aristocrats and bourgeois, with the basis for asserting their own ascendancy to political power. Louis XV, who is often remembered for his cavalier prediction, “Après moi, la déluge” (“After me comes the
ISBN 0-558-43641-2
Those who lived through it were sure that there had never
been a time like it before. The French Revolution, or the Great
Revolution, as it was known to people alive at the time, was a
period of creation and discovery. The ten years from 1789 to
1799 were punctuated by genuine euphoria and democratic
transformations. But the French Revolution was also a time of
violence and destruction. From the privileged elites who initiated the overthrow of the existing order to the peasants and
workers, men and women, who railed against tyranny, the
revolution touched every segment of society.
The revolution achieved most in the area of politics. The
overthrow of absolutist monarchy brought with it new social
theories, new symbols, and new behavior. The excitement of
anarchy was matched by the terror of repression. In the search
for a new order, competing political forms followed one after
the other in rapid succession: constitutional monarchy, republic, oligarchy, and dictatorship.
At the end of the eighteenth century France was a state in
trouble, but it was not alone. Revolutionary incidents flared up
throughout Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century
in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Ireland. Absolute authority
was challenged and sometimes modified. Across the Atlantic,
American colonists concerned with the principle of self-rule had
thrown off the yoke of the British in the War of Independence.
But none of the events, including the American Revolution, was
so violent in breaking with the old order, so extensive in involving millions of men and women in political action, and so consequential for the political futures of other European states as
was the French Revolution. The triumphs and contradictions of
the revolutionary experiment in democracy mark the end of the
old order and the beginning of modern history. Politics would
never be the same again.
The Political and Fiscal Crisis of EighteenthCentury France
The French Revolution and the Fall of the Monarchy
flood”), indeed left a debt that swamped his grandson and
successor Louis XVI. This tension between a growing debt
that was undermining the monarchy and the increased ascendancy of an elite of nobles and bourgeois came to characterize
the Old Regime in France.
When Louis XVI assumed the French throne in 1774, he
was only 20 years old. He inherited a monarchy in a state of
perpetual financial crisis. Not only did he inherit a troubleridden fiscal structure, but Louis XVI also made his own contributions to it, increasing the debt greatly by his involvement
in the War of American Independence (1775–1783).
Following the advice of a series of ministers, Louis sought
structural solutions to the debt through a reformed fiscal policy, taxation, and other new sources of revenue, but each set of
reforms offended different established interests. In the end he
resorted to an unusual but available step—the convening of
the Estates-General—as a means of achieving reforms and
providing financial stability for the state.
Historically, the Estates-General was the representative
body of the three “estates,” or social groups, of France—the
clergy (the First Estate), the nobility (the Second Estate), and
the commoners (the Third Estate). The Third Estate was
composed of all those members of the realm who enjoyed no
special privilege—28 million French people. The EstatesGeneral had not been convened since 1614. Through this
body and its duly chosen representatives, Louis XVI sought
the consent of the nation to levy taxes. In the political organizing that took place in the winter of 1788–1789 the seeds of
revolution were sown.
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Convening the Estates-General
When Louis XVI announced in August 1788 that the EstatesGeneral would meet at Versailles in May 1789, people from all
walks of life hoped for some redress of their miseries. The
king hoped that the clergy, nobility, and commoners would
solve his fiscal problems. Every social group, from the nobles
to the poorest laborers, had its own agenda and its own ideas
about justice, social status, and economic well-being.
One in four nobles had moved from the bourgeoisie to the
aristocratic ranks in the eighteenth century; two out of every
three had been ennobled during the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Nobles had succeeded in expanding their
economic and social power and they now sought to preserve
it. Furthermore, a growing segment of the nobility, influenced
by Enlightenment ideas and the example of English institutions, was intent on increasing the political dominance of the
aristocracy.
Members of the Third Estate, traditionally excluded from
political and social power, were presented with the opportunity of expressing their opinions on the state of government
and society. As commoners in the Third Estate, the bourgeoisie embraced within it a variety of professions, from
bankers and financiers to businessmen, merchants, entrepreneurs, lawyers, shopkeepers, and artisans. Those who could
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This cartoon depicts the plight of the French peasants. An old
farmer is bowed down under the weight of the privileged aristocracy and clergy while birds and rabbits, protected by unfair game
laws, eat his crops.
not read stood in marketplaces and city squares or sat around
evening fires and had the political literature read to them.
Farmhands and urban laborers realized that they were participating in the same process as their social betters, and they believed they had a right to speak and be heard.
It was a time of great hope, especially for workers and peasants who had been buffeted by the rise in prices, decline in real
wages, and the hunger that followed crop failures and poor harvests. There was new promise of a respite and a solution. Taxes
could be discussed and changed, the state bureaucracy could be
reformed—or better, abolished. Intellectuals discussed political
alternatives in the salons of the wealthy. Nobles and bourgeois
met in philosophical societies dedicated to enlightened thought.
Commoners gathered in cafes to drink and debate. Although the
poor often fell outside the network of communication, they
were not immune to the ideas that emerged. In the end, people
of all classes had opinions and were more certain than ever of
their right to express their ideas. Absolutism was in trouble,
though Louis XVI did not know it, as people began to forge a
collectively shared idea of politics. People now had a forum—
the Estates-General—and a focus—the politics of taxation.
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“If Only the King Knew.” In conjunction with the political activity and in scheduled meetings, members of all three
estates drew up lists of their problems. This process took place
in a variety of forums, including guilds and village and town
meetings. The people of France drew up grievance lists—
known as cahiers de doléances—that were then carried to
Versailles by the deputies elected to the Estates-General. The
grievance lists contained the collective outpouring of problems of each estate and are important for two major reasons.
First, they made clear the similarity of grievances shared
throughout France. Second, they indicated the extent to
which a common political culture, based on a concern with
political reform, had permeated different levels of French society. Both the privileged and the nonprivileged identified a
common enemy in the system of state bureaucracy to which
the monarch was so strongly tied. Although the king was still
addressed with respect, new concerns with liberty, equality,
property, and the rule of law were voiced.
“If only the king knew!” In that phrase, French men and
women had for generations expressed their belief in the inevitability of their fate and the benevolence of their king.
They saw the king as a loving and wise father who would not
tolerate the injustices visited on his subjects if only he knew
what was really happening. In 1789, peasants and workers
were questioning why their lives could not be better, but they
continued to express their trust in the king. Combined with
their old faith was a new hope. The peasants in the little town
of Saintes recorded their newly formed expectations:
Our king, the best of kings and father of a great and wise family,
will soon know everything. All vices will be destroyed. All the
great virtues of industriousness, honesty, modesty, honor, patriotism, meekness, friendliness, equality, concord, pity, and thrift
will prevail and wisdom will rule supreme.
The elected deputies arrived at Versailles at the beginning
of May 1789 carrying in their valises and trunks the grievances of their estates. The opening session of the EstatesGeneral took place in a great hall especially constructed for
the event. The 1248 deputies presented a grand spectacle as
they filed to their assigned places to hear speeches by the king
and his ministers. Contrasts among the participants were immediately apparent. Seated on a raised throne under a canopy
at one end of the hall, Louis XVI was vested in full kingly regalia. On his right sat the archbishops and cardinals of the
First Estate, strikingly clad in the pinks and purples of their
offices. On his left were the richly and decorously attired nobility of the Second Estate. Facing the stage sat the 648
deputies of the Third Estate, dressed in plain black suits, stark
against the colorful and costly costumes of the privileged.
Members of the Third Estate had announced beforehand that
they would not follow the ancient custom for commoners of
kneeling at the king’s entrance. Fired by the hope of equal
treatment and an equal share of power, they had come to
Versailles to make a constitution. The opening ceremony degenerated into a moment of confusion over whether members
of the Third Estate should be able to wear their hats in the
presence of the king. Many saw in the politics of clothing a
tense beginning to their task.
The Crisis in Voting by Estate. The tension between
commoners and the privileged was aggravated by the unresolved issue of how the voting was to proceed. Traditionally,
each of the three orders was equally weighted. The arrangement favored the nobility, who controlled the first two estates,
since the clergy themselves were often noble.
The Third Estate was adamant in its demand for vote by
head. The privileged orders were equally firm in insisting on
vote by order. Paralysis set in, as days dragged into weeks and
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“Abuses to Suppress.” This
cartoon depicts the Third
Estate—represented here by
the peasant following the
carriage, the worker leading
the horses, and the merchant
driving—delivering a petition
of “abuses” to be remedied
by the National Assembly.
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595
“WHAT IS THE THIRD ESTATE?”
As an ambitious clergyman from Chartres, Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès was a member of the First Estate. Yet Sieyès
was elected deputy to the Estates-General for the Third Estate on the basis of his attacks on aristocratic privilege. He participated in the writing and editing of the great documents of the early revolution: the Oath of the Tennis Court and the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. The pamphlet for which he is immortalized in revolutionary lore was his
daring “What Is the Third Estate?” Written in January 1789, it boldly confronted the bankruptcy of the system of privilege of the Old Regime and threw down the gauntlet to those who ruled France. In this document the revolution found its
rallying point.
Focus Questions
Why does Sieyès claim that nothing in the nation can
“progress” without the Third Estate? When he states that
“the nobility does not belong to the social organization at
all,” what point is he making about the social utility of privilege?
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1st. What is the Third Estate? Everything.
2nd. What has it been heretofore in the political order?
Nothing.
3rd. What does it demand? To become something
therein. . . .
Who, then, would dare to say that the Third Estate has
not within itself all that is necessary to constitute a complete nation? It is the strong and robust man whose one
arm remains enchained. If the privileged order were abol-
the Estates were unable to act. The body that was to save
France from fiscal collapse was hopelessly deadlocked.
Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836), a member of
the clergy, emerged as the critical leader of the Third Estate.
Sieyès had already established his reputation as a firebrand reformer with his eloquent pamphlet, “What Is the Third
Estate?” published in January 1789. (See the document above.)
He understood that although eighteenth-century French society continued to be divided by law and custom into a pyramid
of three tiers, these orders or estates were obsolete in representing social realities. The base of the pyramid was formed by
the largest of the three estates, those who worked—the bourgeoisie, the peasantry, and urban and rural workers—and produced the nation’s wealth. He argued that so long as the First
and Second Estates did not share their privileges and rights,
they were not a part of the French nation.
Under the influence of Sieyès and the reformist consensus
that characterized their ranks, the delegates of the Third
Estate decided to proceed with their own meetings. On 17
June 1789, joined by some sympathetic clergy, the Third
Estate changed its name to the National Assembly as an assertion of its true representation of the French nation. They dedicated themselves to the primary task of writing a constitution
and thereby ending absolute rule of the king. (See The Visual
Record, pp. 590–591.)
ished, the nation would not be something less but something more. Thus, what is the Third Estate? Everything; but
an everything shackled and oppressed. What would it be
without the privileged order? Everything; but an everything free and flourishing. Nothing can progress without
it; everything would proceed infinitely better without the
others. It is not sufficient to have demonstrated that the
privileged classes, far from being useful to the nation, can
only enfeeble and injure it; it is necessary, moreover, to
prove that the nobility does not belong to the social organization at all; that, indeed, it may be a burden upon the
nation, but that it would not know how to constitute a part
thereof.
The Third Estate, then, comprises everything appertaining to the nation; and whatever is not the Third Estate
may not be regarded as being of the nation. What is the
Third Estate? Everything!
The Importance of Public Opinion. The drama of
Versailles, a staged play of gestures, manners, oaths, and attire,
also marked the beginning of a far-reaching political revolution. Although it was a drama that took place behind closed
doors, it was not one unknown to the general public.
Throughout May and June 1789, Parisians trekked to Versailles
to watch the deliberations and then brought the news back to
the capital. Deputies wrote home to their constituents to keep
them abreast of events. Newspapers that reported daily on the
wranglings and pamphleteers who analyzed them spread the
news throughout the nation. Information, often conflicting,
stirred up anxiety; news of conflict encouraged action.
The frustration and stalemate of the Estates-General
threatened to put the spark to the kindling of urban unrest.
The people of Paris had suffered through a harsh winter and
spring under the burdens of high prices (especially of bread),
limited supplies, and relentless tax demands. The rioting of
the spring had for the moment ceased as people waited for
their problems to be solved by the deputies of the EstatesGeneral. The suffering of the urban poor was not new, but
their ability to connect economic hardships with the politics
at Versailles and to blame the government was. As hopes began to dim with the news of political stalemate, news broke of
the creation of the National Assembly. It was greeted with new
anticipation.
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The Outbreak of Revolutionary Action
in 1789
The king, who had temporarily withdrawn from sight following the death of his son at the beginning of June, reemerged to
meet with the representatives of each of the three estates and
propose reforms, including a constitutional monarchy. But
Louis XVI refused to accept the now popularly supported
National Assembly as a legitimate body, insisting instead that
he must rely on the three estates for advice. He simply did not
understand that the choice was no longer his to make. He
summoned troops to Versailles and began concentrating soldiers in Paris. Civilians continually clashed with members of
the military, whom they jostled and jeered. The urban crowds
recognized the threat of repression that the troops represented. People decided to meet force with force. To do so, they
needed arms themselves—and they knew where to get them.
The Storming of the Bastille. On 14 July 1789, the irate
citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille, a royal armory that also
served as a prison for a handful of debtors. The storming of
the Bastille became the great symbol in the revolutionary legend of the overthrow of the tyranny and oppression of the
Old Regime. But it is significant for another reason. It was an
expression of the power of the people to take politics into
their own hands. Parisians were following the lead of their
deputies in Versailles. They had formed a citizen militia
known as the National Guard, and they were prepared to defend their concept of justice and law.
The people who stormed the Bastille were not the poor, the
unemployed, the criminals, or the urban rabble, as their detractors portrayed them. They were petty tradesmen, shop-
keepers, and wage-earners, who considered it their right to
seize arms in order to protect their interests. The Marquis de
Lafayette (1757–1834), a noble beloved of the people because
of his participation in the American Revolution, helped organize the National Guard. Under his direction, the militia
adopted the tricolor flag as its standard. The tricolor combined the red and blue colors of the city of Paris with the
white of the Bourbon royal family. It became the flag of the
revolution, replacing the fleur-de-lis of the Bourbons. It is the
national flag of France today.
The king could no longer dictate the terms of the constitution. By their actions, the people in arms had ratified the
National Assembly. Louis XVI was forced to yield. The events
in Paris set off similar uprisings in cities and towns throughout France. National guards in provincial cities modeled
themselves after the Parisian militia. Government officials fled
their posts and abandoned their responsibilities. Commoners
stood ready to fill the power vacuum. But the revolution was
not just an urban phenomenon: the peasantry had their own
grievances and their own way of making a revolution.
Peasant Fear of an Aristocratic Plot. The precariousness
of rural life and the increase in population in the countryside
contributed to the permanent displacement and destitution of
a growing sector of rural society. Without savings and destroyed by poor harvests, impoverished rural inhabitants wandered the countryside looking for odd jobs and eventually begging to survive. All peasants endured common obligations
placed on them by the crown and the privileged classes. A bewildering array of taxes afflicted peasants: they owed the tithe
to the Church, land taxes to the state, and seigneurial dues and
rents to the landlord. In some areas, peasants repaired roads
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This lively amateur painting of the
fall of the Bastille is by Claude
Cholat, one of the attackers.
Tradition has it that Cholat is manning the cannon in the background.
The inscription proclaims that the
painting is by one of the “conquerors of the Bastille.”
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MAP DISCOVERY
GREAT
BRITAIN
HOLY
ROMAN
EMPIRE
A
NE UST
TH
R
ER IAN
LA
ND
S
ine
Rh
nel
English Chan
Lille
Amiens
Rouen
Caen
Brest
R.
Arras
Le Havre
Reims
Dol
Rennes
Nancy
Seine R.
Strasbourg
Troyes
Quiberon
Orléans
Nantes
Sancerre
Cholet
Bourges
ne
R.
Angers
Dijon
Besançon
Lo
ire
Poitiers
Bay of
Biscay
Colmar
Saô
Metz
Paris
Versailles
R.
SWISS
CONFED.
FRANCE
Lyon
Bordeaux
ne
on
ar
G
Rhone
R.
Grenoble
Montauban
R.
Nîmes
Valence
Avignon
Montpellier
SPAIN
Marseille
Toulon
Mediterranean Sea
Boundaries, 1789
Revolutionary centers
Areas of the Great Fear,
July – Aug. 1789
French boundaries, 1793
Counter-revolutionary activity
Centers of counterrevolutionary activity
0
Areas of insurrection
0
200 Miles
200 Kilometers
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Revolutionary France
The French Revolution was not merely a Parisian phenomenon, as this map
shows. Locate the revolutionary centers on the map. What feature is common to
all of these centers? How do you explain their distribution throughout France?
Pockets of insurrection and counter-revolution were scattered for the most part
in the southeast and west. What did they have in common? What territories did
France gain between 1789 and 1793 and why did it expand?
597
and drew lots for military service.
Dues affected almost every aspect
of rural life. The labor of women
was essential to the survival of
the rural family. Peasant women
sought employment in towns
and cities as seamstresses and
servants in order to send money
back home to struggling relatives. Children, too, added their
earnings to the family pot. In
spite of various strategies for survival, the lives of more and more
peasant families were disrupted
by the end of the eighteenth century as they were displaced from
the land.
News of the events of
Versailles and then of the revolutionary action in Paris did not
reassure rural inhabitants. By the
end of June the hope of deliverance from crippling taxes and
dues was rapidly fading. The
news of the Oath of the Tennis
Court and the storming of the
Bastille terrified country folk,
who saw the actions as evidence
of an aristocratic plot that
threatened sorely needed reforms. As information moved
along postal routes in letters
from delegates to their supporters, and as news was repeated in
the Sunday market gatherings,
distortions and exaggerations
crept in. It seemed to rural inhabitants that their world was
falling apart. Some peasants believed that Paris was in the hands
of brigands and that the king
and the Estates-General were
victims of an aristocratic plot.
Rural vision, fueled by empty
stomachs, was apocalyptic.
That state of affairs was aggravated as increasing numbers
of peasants were pushed off the
land to seek employment as
transient farm laborers, moving
from one area to another with
the cycles of sowing and harvesting. Throughout the 1780s, the
number of peasants without
land was increasing steadily.
598
Starving men, women, and children, filthy and poorly
dressed, were frightening figures to villagers who feared that
the same fate would befall them with the next bad harvest. As
one landowner lamented, “We cannot lie down without fear,
the nighttime paupers have tormented us greatly, to say nothing of the daytime ones, whose numbers are considerable.”
Most peasants had lived in the same place for generations
and knew only the confines of their own villages. They were
uneasy about what existed beyond the horizon. Transients, often speaking strange dialects, disrupted and threatened the
social universe of the village. In order to survive, wanderers
often resorted to petty theft, stealing fruit from trees or food
from unwatched hearths. Often traveling in groups, hordes of
vagabonds struck fear into the hearts of farm workers, trampling crops and sleeping in open fields. Peasants were sure
that the unfortunate souls were brigands paid by the local
aristocracy to persecute a peasantry already stretched to the
breaking point.
The Peasant Revolt. Hope gave way to fear. Beginning on
20 July 1789, peasants in different areas of France reacted collectively throughout France, spreading false rumors of a great
conspiracy. Fear gripped whole villages and in some areas
spawned revolt. Just as urban workers had connected their
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economic hardships to politics, so too did desperate peasants
see their plight in political terms. Historians describe this period of collective panic as the Great Fear. Peasants banded together and marched to the residences of the local nobility,
breaking into chateaux with a single mission in mind: to destroy all legal documents by which nobles claimed payments,
dues, and services from local peasants. They drove out the
lords and in some cases burned their chateaux, putting an end
to the tyranny of the privileged over the countryside. The
peasants had taken matters into their own hands. They intended to consign the last vestiges of aristocratic privilege to
the bonfires of aristocratic documents.
The overthrow of privileges rooted in a feudal past was not
so easy. Members of the National Assembly were aghast at the
eruption of rural violence. They knew that to stay in power
they had to maintain peace. They also knew that to be credible
they had to protect property. Peasant destruction of seigneurial claims posed a real dilemma for the bourgeois deputies directing the revolution. If they gave in to peasant demands,
they risked losing aristocratic support and undermining their
own ability to control events. If they gave in to the aristocracy,
they risked a social revolution in the countryside, which they
could not police or repress. Liberal members of the aristocracy
cooperated with the bourgeois leaders in finding a solution.
A contemporary print of the women of Paris advancing on Versailles. The determined marchers are
shown waving pikes and dragging an artillery piece. The women were hailed as heroines of the revolution.
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In a dramatic meeting that lasted through the night of 4
August 1789, the National Assembly agreed to abolish the
principle of privilege. The peasants had won—or thought
they had. In the weeks and months ahead, rural people
learned that they had lost their own prerogatives—the rights
to common grazing and gathering—and were expected to buy
their way out of their feudal services. In the meantime, parliamentary action had saved the day: the deputies stabilized the
situation through legislating compromise.
Women on the March. Women participated with men in
both urban and rural revolutionary actions. Acting on their
own, women were responsible for one of the most dramatic
events of the early years of the revolution: in October 1789
they forced the king and the royal family to leave Versailles for
Paris to deal in person with the problems of bread supply,
high prices, and starvation. Women milling about in the marketplaces of Paris on the morning of 5 October were complaining bitterly about the high cost and shortages of bread.
The National Assembly was in session, and the National
Guards were patrolling the streets of Paris. But the trappings
of political change had no impact on the brutal realities of the
marketplace.
Women were in charge of buying the food for their families. Every morning they stood in lines with their neighbors
reenacting the familiar ritual. Some mornings they were
turned away, told by the baker or his assistants that there was
no bread. On other days they did not have enough coins in
their purses to buy the staple of their diet. Women responsible
for managing the consumption of the household were most
directly in touch with the state of provisioning the capital.
When they were unable to feed their families, the situation became intolerable.
So it was, on the morning of 5 October 1789, that 6000
Parisian women marched out of the city and toward Versailles.
They were taking their problem to the king with the demand
that he solve it. Later in the day, Lafayette led the Parisian
National Guard to Versailles to mediate events. The women
were armed with pikes, the simple weapon available to the
poorest defender of the revolution, and they were prepared to
use them. The battle came early the next morning, when the
women, now accompanied by revolutionary men, tired and
cold from waiting all night at the gates of the palace, invaded
the royal apartments and chased Marie Antoinette from her
bedroom. Several members of the royal guards, hated by the
people of Paris for alleged insults against the tricolor cockade,
were killed by the angry crowd, who decapitated them and
mounted their heads on pikes. A shocked Louis XVI agreed to
return with the crowd to Paris. The crowd cheered Louis’s decision, which briefly reestablished his personal popularity. But
as monarch, he had been humiliated at the hands of women of
the capital. Reduced to the roles of “the baker, the baker’s wife,
and the baker’s son” by jeering crowds, the royal family was
forced to return to Paris that very day. Louis XVI was now
captive to the revolution, whose efforts to form a constitutional monarchy he purported to support.
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Declaring Political Rights
“Liberty consists in the ability to do whatever does not harm
another.” So wrote the revolutionary deputies of 1789.
Sounding a refrain similar to that of the American
Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of the Rights of
Man and Citizen appeared on 26 August 1789. The document
amalgamated a variety of Enlightenment ideas drawn from
the works of political philosophy, including those of Locke
and Montesquieu. “Men are born and remain free and equal
in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on common
utility.” Perhaps most significant of all was the attention given
to property, which was declared a “sacred and inviolable,”
“natural,” and “imprescriptible” right of man.
In the year of tranquility that followed the violent summer
of 1789, the new politicians set themselves the task of creating
institutions based on the principle of liberty and others embodied in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.
The result was the Constitution of 1791, a statement of faith
in a progressive constitutional monarchy. A king accountable
to an elected parliamentary body would lead France into a
prosperous and just age. The constitution acknowledged the
people’s sovereignty as the source of political power. It also
enshrined the principle of property by making voting rights
dependent on property ownership. All men might be equal
before the law, but by the Constitution of 1791 only wealthy
men had the right to vote for representatives and hold office.
Civil Liberties. All titles of nobility were abolished. In the
early period of the revolution, civil liberties were extended to
Protestants and Jews, who had been persecuted under the Old
Regime. Previously excluded groups were granted freedom of
thought, worship, and full civil liberties. More reluctantly,
deputies outlawed slavery in the colonies in 1794. Slave unrest
in Saint Domingue (modern-day Haiti) had coincided with
the political conflicts of the revolution and exploded in rebellion in 1791, driving the revolutionaries in Paris to support
black independence although it was at odds with French colonial interests. Led by Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743–1803),
black rebels worked to found an independent Haitian state,
which was declared in 1804. But the concept of equality with
regard to race remained incompletely integrated with revolutionary principles, and slavery was reestablished in the French
colonies in 1802.
Women’s Rights. Men were the subject of the newly defined rights. No references to women or their rights appear in
the constitutions or the official Declarations of Rights.
Women’s organizations agitated for an equitable divorce law,
and divorce was legalized in September 1792. Women were
critical actors in the revolution from its very inception, and
their presence shaped and directed the outcome of events, as
the women’s march to Versailles in 1789 made clear. The
Marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794), elected to the Legislative
Assembly in 1791, was one of the first to chastise the revolutionaries for overlooking the political rights of women who,
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DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND CITIZEN
Sounding a refrain similar to that of the American Declaration of Independence (1776), the Declaration of the Rights of
Man and Citizen was adopted by the French National Assembly on 26 August 1789. The document amalgamated a variety of Enlightenment ideas, including those of Locke and Montesquieu. The attention to property, which was defined as
“sacred and inviolable,” rivaled that given to liberty as a “natural” and “imprescriptible” right of man.
Focus Questions
How are individual rights defined in relation to the rights of
“society” and the “nation”? What is the role of law in protecting rights?
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.
Social distinctions may be founded only upon the
general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation
of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.
These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the
nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything
which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the
natural rights of each man has no limits except those
which assure to the other members of the society the
enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be
determined by law.
5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to
society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen
has a right to participate personally, or through his
representative, in its formation. It must be the same
for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to
all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.
9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have
been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the
prisoner’s person shall be severely repressed by law.
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions,
including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one
of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this
freedom as shall be defined by law.
12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen
requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the
personal advantage of those to whom they shall be
entrusted.
13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among
all the citizens in proportion to their means.
14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally
or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the
public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to
what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode
of assessment and of collection and the duration of
the taxes.
15. Society has the right to require of every public agent
an account of his administration.
16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no
constitution at all.
17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no
one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and
then only on condition that the owner shall have been
previously and equitably indemnified.
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7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned
except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order,
shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay,
as resistance constitutes an offense.
8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as
are strictly and obviously necessary. . . .
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DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN AND CITIZEN
“Woman, wake up!” Thus did Olympe de Gouges (d. 1793), a self-educated playwright, address French women in 1791.
Aware that women were being denied the new rights of liberty and property extended to all men by the Declaration of
the Rights of Man and Citizen, Gouges composed her own Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen, modeled on
the 1789 document. Persecuted for her political beliefs, she foreshadowed her own demise at the hands of revolutionary
justice in Article 10 of her declaration. The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen became an important document in women’s demands for political rights in the nineteenth century, and Gouges herself became a feminist hero.
Focus Questions
ISBN 0-558-43641-2
Why was a separate declaration of rights necessary for
women? How does this declaration differ from the
“Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”?
Article I Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her
rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility.
Article II The purpose of any political association is the
conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of
woman and man; these rights are liberty, property, security, and especially resistance to oppression.
Article III The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially
with the nation, which is nothing but the union of woman
and man; no body and no individual can exercise any authority which does not come expressly from it [the nation].
Article IV Liberty and justice consist of restoring all that
belongs to others; thus, the only limits on the exercise of the
natural rights of woman are perpetual male tyranny; these
limits are to be reformed by the laws of nature and reason.
Article V Laws of nature and reason proscribe all acts
harmful to society; everything which is not prohibited by
these wise and divine laws cannot be prevented, and no
one can be constrained to do what they do not command.
Article VI The law must be the expression of the general will; all female and male citizens must contribute either personally or through their representatives to its formation; it must be the same for all: male and female
citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, must be equally
admitted to all honors, positions, and public employment
according to their capacity and without other distinctions
besides those of their virtues and talents.
Article VII No woman is an exception; she is accused,
arrested, and detained in cases determined by law. Women,
like men, obey this rigorous law.
Article VIII The law must establish only those penalties
that are strictly and obviously necessary. . . .
Article IX Once any woman is declared guilty, complete
rigor is [to be] exercised by the law.
Article X No one is to be disquieted for his very basic
opinions; woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she
must equally have the right to mount the rostrum, provided that her demonstrations do not disturb the legally
established public order.
Article XI The free communication of thoughts and
opinions is one of the most precious rights of woman,
since that liberty assures the recognition of children by
their fathers. Any female citizen thus may say freely, I am
the mother of a child which belongs to you, without being
forced by a barbarous prejudice to hide the truth; [an exception may be made] to respond to the abuse of this liberty in cases determined by the law.
Article XII The guarantee of the rights of woman and
the female citizen implies a major benefit; this guarantee
must be instituted for the advantage of all, and not for the
particular benefit of those to whom it is entrusted.
Article XIII For the support of the public force and the
expenses of administration, the contributions of woman
and man are equal; she shares all the duties [corvées] and
all the painful tasks; therefore, she must have the same
share in the distribution of positions, employment, offices,
honors and jobs [industrie].
Article XIV Female and male citizens have the right to
verify, either by themselves or through their representatives, the necessity of the public contribution. This can
only apply to women if they are granted an equal share,
not only of wealth, but also of public administration, and
in the determination of the proportion, the base, the collection, and the duration of the tax.
Article XV The collectivity of women, joined for tax
purposes to the aggregate of men, has the right to demand
an accounting of his administration from any public agent.
Article XVI No society has a constitution without the
guarantee of rights and the separation of powers: the constitution is null if the majority of individuals comprising
the nation have not cooperated in drafting it.
Article XVII Property belongs to both sexes whether
united or separate; for each it is an inviolable and sacred
right; no one can be deprived of it, since it is the true patrimony of nature, unless the legally determined public need
obviously dictates it, and then only with a just and prior
indemnity.
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he pointedly observed, were half of the human race. “Either
no individual of the human race has genuine rights, or else all
have the same; and he who votes against the right of another,
whatever the religion, color, or sex of that other, has henceforth abjured his own.” Condorcet argued forcefully but unsuccessfully for the right of women to be educated.
The revolutionaries had declared that liberty was a natural
and inalienable right, a universal right that was extended to all
with the overthrow of a despotic monarch and a privileged elite.
The principle triumphed in religious toleration. Yet the revolutionary concept of liberty foundered on the divergent claims of
excluded groups—workers, women, and slaves—who demanded full participation in the world of politics. In 1792, revolutionaries confronted the contradictions inherent in their political beliefs of liberty and equality that were being challenged in
the midst of social upheaval and foreign war. In response, the
revolution turned to more radical measures to survive.
The Trials of Constitutional Monarchy
anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. A new national
holiday was born and with it a sense of devotion and patriotism for the new France liberated by the revolution. In spite of
the unifying elements, however, the newly achieved revolutionary consensus began to show signs of breaking down.
The Counterrevolution. In February 1790, legislation dissolved all monasteries and convents, except for those that provided aid to the poor or that served as educational institutions.
As the French church was stripped of its lands, Pope Pius VI
(1775–1799) denounced the principles of the revolution. In
July 1790, the government approved the Civil Constitution of
the Clergy: priests now became the equivalent of paid agents of
the state. By requiring an oath of loyalty to the state from all
practicing priests, the National Assembly created a new arena
for dissent. Catholics were forced to choose to embrace or reject
the revolution. Many “nonjuring” priests who refused to take
the oath went into hiding. The wedge driven between the
Catholic Church and revolutionary France allowed a massbased counterrevolution to emerge. Aristocratic émigrés who
had fled the country because of their opposition to the revolution were languishing for lack of a popular base. From his headquarters in Turin, the king’s younger brother, the comte
d’Artois, was attempting to incite a civil war in France. When
the revolutionaries decided to attack the Church not just as a
landed and privileged institution but also as a religious one, the
counterrevolution rapidly expanded.
Late one night in June 1791, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette,
and their children disguised themselves as commoners, crept
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The disciplined deliberations of committees intent on fashioning a constitutional monarchy replaced the passion and
fervor of revolutionary oratory. The National, or Constituent,
Assembly divided France into new administrative units—
départements—for the purpose of establishing better control
over municipal governments. Along with new administrative
trappings, the government promoted its own rituals. On 14
July 1790, militias from each of the newly created 83 départements of France came together in Paris to celebrate the first
Slaves revolting against the French
in Saint Domingue in 1791.
Napoleon sent an army to restore
colonial rule in 1799, but yellow
fever decimated the French soldiers,
and the rebels defeated the weakened French army in 1803.
Experimenting with Democracy, 1792–1799
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out of the royal apartments in the Tuileries Palace, and fled
Paris. Louis intended to leave France to join royalist forces opposing the revolution at Metz. He got as far as Varennes,
where he was captured by soldiers of the National Guard and
brought back to a shocked Paris. The king had abandoned the
revolution. Although he was not put to death for another year
and a half, he was more than ever a prisoner of the revolution.
The Fiscal Crisis. The defection of the king was certainly serious, but it was not the only problem facing the revolutionaries. Other problems plagued the revolutionary government,
notably foreign war and the fiscal crisis, coupled with inflation.
In order to establish its seriousness and legitimacy, the National
Assembly had been willing in 1789 to absorb the debts of the
Old Regime. The new government could not sell titles and offices, as the king had done to deal with financial problems, but
it did confiscate Church property. In addition, it issued treasury bonds in the form of assignats in order to raise money.
The assignats soon assumed the status of bank notes, and by
the spring of 1790 they had become compulsory legal tender.
Initially they were to be backed by land confiscated from the
Church and sold by the state. But the need for money soon outran the value of the land available, and the government continued to print assignats according to its needs. Depreciation of
French currency in international markets and inflation at
home resulted. The revolutionary government found itself in a
situation which in certain respects was worse than that experienced by Louis XVI before the calling of the Estates-General.
Assignat-induced inflation produced a sharp decline in the fortunes of bourgeois investors living on fixed incomes. Rising
prices meant increased misery for workers and peasants.
New counterrevolutionary groups were becoming frustrated with revolutionary policies. Throughout the winter and
spring of 1791–1792, people rioted and demanded that prices
be fixed, while the assignat dropped to less than half its face
value. Peasants refused to sell crops for the worthless paper.
Hoarding further drove up prices. Angry crowds turned to
pillaging, rioting, and murder, which became more frequent
as the value of the currency declined and prices rose.
Foreign war beginning in the fall of 1791 also challenged stability. Some moderate political leaders welcomed war as a blessing in disguise, since it could divert the attention of the masses
away from problems at home and promote loyalty to the revolution. Others envisioned war as a great crusade to bring revolutionary principles to oppressed peoples throughout Europe.
The king and queen, trapped by the revolution, saw war as their
only hope of liberation. Louis XVI could be rightfully restored
as the leader of a France defeated by the sovereigns of Europe.
Some who opposed the war believed it would destabilize the
revolution. France must solve its problems at home, they argued, before fighting a foreign enemy. Louis, however, encouraged those ministers and advisers eager for battle. In April 1792,
France declared war against Austria.
Individuals, events, economic realities, and the nature of
politics conspired against the success of the first constitutional
experiment. The king’s attempt to flee France in the summer of
603
1791 seriously wounded the attempt at compromise. Many
feared that the goals of the revolution could not be preserved in
a country at war and with a king of dubious loyalties.
EXPERIMENTING WITH
DEMOCRACY, 1792–1799
The Revolution was a school for the French nation. A political
universe populated by individual citizens replaced the eighteenth-century world of subjects loyal to their king. The new
construction of politics, in which all individuals were equal,
ran counter to prevailing ideas about collective identities defined in guilds and orders. People on all levels of society
learned politics by doing it. In the beginning, experience
helped. The elites, both noble and bourgeois, had served in
government and administration. But the rules of the game
under the Old Regime had been very different, with birth and
wealth determining power.
After 1789, all men were declared free and equal, in opportunity if not in rights. Men of ability and talent, who had
served as middlemen for the privileged elite under the Old
Regime, now claimed power as their due. Many of them were
lawyers, educated in the rules and regulations of the society of
orders. They experienced firsthand the problems of the exercise of power in the Old Regime, and they had their own ideas
about reform. But the school of the revolution did not remain
the domain of a special class. Women demanded their places
but continued to be excluded from the political arena, though
the importance of their participation in the revolution was indisputable. Workers talked of seizing their rights, but because
of the inherent contradictions of representation and participation, experimenting with democracy led to outcomes that
did not look very democratic at all.
The Revolution of the People
The first stage of the French Revolution, lasting from 1789
through the beginning of 1792, was based on liberty—the liberty to compete, to own, and to succeed. The second stage of
the French Revolution, which began in 1792, took equality as
its rallying cry. It was the revolution of the working people of
French cities. The popular movement that spearheaded political action in 1792 was committed to equality of rights in a
way not characteristic of the leaders of the revolution of 1789.
Urban workers were not benefiting from the revolution, but
they had come to believe in their own power as political beings. Organized on the local level into sections, artisans in
cities identified themselves as sans-culottes—literally, those
trousered citizens who did not wear knee breeches
(culottes)—to distinguish themselves from the privileged elite.
Who constituted the popular movement? The selfdesignated sans-culottes were the working men and women of
Paris. Some were wealthier than others, some were wage earners,
but all shared a common identity as consumers in the market-
THE GUILLOTINE AND
REVOLUTIONARY JUSTICE
A
CLOSER
LOOK
headless body through the base of the
scaffolding for removal. In place of unintended torture and gore, the guillotine
was devised as a humanitarian instrument to guarantee swift and painless
death.
It should have been called the
Louisette, after its inventor, Dr. Antoine
Louis. In what now seems a dubious
honor, the new machine was named instead after its greatest supporter, Dr.
Joseph Ignace Guillotin, a delegate to the
National Assembly. Both Guillotin and
Louis were medical doctors, men of science influenced by Enlightenment ideas
and committed to the revolution’s elimination of the cruelty of older forms of
punishment. In the spirit of scientific experimentation, Louis’s invention was
tested on sheep, cadavers, and then convicted thieves. In 1792, it was used for
the first time against another class of offenders: political prisoners.
■
Early in the revolution, the Marquis
de Condorcet, philosophe and mathematician, had opposed capital punishment with the argument that the state
did not have the right to take life.
Ironically, Maximilien Robespierre, future architect of the Reign of Terror,
was one of the few revolutionaries who
agreed with Condorcet. Those who favored justice by execution of the state’s
enemies prevailed. By the end of 1792,
as revolution and civil war swept over
France, 83 identical guillotines were
constructed and installed in each of the
départements of France. For the next
two years, the guillotine’s great blade
was rhythmically raised and lowered
daily in public squares all over France.
In the name of the revolution, the “axe
of the people” dispatched over 50,000
victims.
Although intended as a humanitarian
instrument, the guillotine became the
Execution of Louis XVI on 21 January 1793.
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In the sultry summer days of 1792,
Parisians found a new way to entertain
themselves. They attended executions.
French men, women, and children were
long accustomed to watching criminals
being tortured and put to death in public
view. During the Old Regime, spectators
could enjoy a variety of methods:
drawing and quartering, strangling, or
hanging. Decapitation, reputedly a less
painful death, was a privilege reserved for
nobles sentenced for capital crimes. The
French Revolution extended that
formerly aristocratic privilege to all
criminals condemned to death. What
especially attracted people to public
squares in the third year of the revolution
was the introduction of a novel method
of decapitation. In 1792, the new instrument of death,
the guillotine,
became the
center of the
spectacle of
revolutionary
justice.
The guillotine promised to eliminate the suffering
of its victims. Axes, swords, and sabers—
the traditional tools of decapitation and
dismemberment—were messy and undependable, producing slow and bloody
ordeals when inept or drunken executioners missed their mark or victims
flinched at the fatal moment. The design
of the guillotine took all of that into account. On its easel-like wooden structure, victims, lying on their stomachs,
were held in place with straps and a pillory. Heavy pulleys guaranteed that the
sharp blade would fall efficiently from its
great height. A basket was placed at the
base of the blade to catch the severed
head; another was used to slide the
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symbol of all that was arbitrary and repressive about a revolution run amok.
Day and night, the Revolutionary
Tribunal in Paris delivered the death
sentence to the “enemies of the people.”
Most of those executed were members of
what had been the Third Estate: members of the bourgeoisie, workers, and
peasants. Only 15 percent of the condemned were nobles and priests. During
the Terror, the guillotine could be used
to settle old scores. Sans-culottes turned
in their neighbors, sometimes over longstanding grievances that owed more to
spite than politics. The most fanatical
revolutionaries had fantasies that guillotines were about to be erected on every
street corner to dispense with hoarders
and traitors. Others suggested that guillotines be made portable so that by
putting justice on wheels, it could be
taken directly to the people.
As usual, Paris set the style. The most
famous of the guillotines stood on the
Place du Carrousel, deliberately placed in
front of the royal palace of the Tuileries.
It was eventually moved to the larger
Place de la Révolution in order to accommodate the growing numbers of
spectators. Famous victims drew especially large crowds. The revolutionary
drama took on the trappings of a spectacle as hawkers sold toy guillotines,
miniature pikes, and liberty caps as souvenirs, along with the usual food and
drink. Troops attended the events, but
not to control the crowd. Members of
the National Guard in formation, their
backs to the people, faced the stage of the
scaffold. They, like the citizenry, were
there to witness the birth of a new nation
and, by their presence, to give legitimacy
to the event. The crowd entered into the
ritual, cheering the victim’s last words
and demanding that the executioner
hold high the severed head. In the new
political culture, death was a festival.
■
This frontispiece from the anti-Robespierre work Almanach des Prisons illustrates the results of the Reign of Terror under Robespierre’s leadership and the guillotine’s blade.
For two centuries, Western societies
have debated the legitimacy of the
death sentence and have periodically
considered the relative merits of the
guillotine, the gas chamber, and the
electric chair. For the French, the controversy temporarily ceased in 1794,
when people were convinced that justice had gotten out of hand and that
they had seen enough. The guillotine
would return, but for the time being,
the government put an end to capital
punishment. At the height of its use,
between 1792 and 1794, it had played a
unique role in forging a new system of
justice: the guillotine had been the
great leveler. In the ideology of democracy, people were equal—in death as
well as in life. The guillotine came to be
popularly known as the “scythe of
equality.” It killed king and commoner
alike.
605
606
place. They hated the privileged (les gros), who appeared to be
profiting at the expense of the people. The sans-culottes wanted
government power to be decentralized, with neighborhoods ruling themselves through sectional organizations. As the havenots, they were increasingly intent on pulling down the haves,
and they translated the sense of vengeance into a new revolutionary justice. On 10 August 1792, the people of Paris stormed
the Tuileries, chanting their demands for “Equality!” and
“Nation!” The people tramped across the silk sheets of the king’s
bed and broke his fine furniture, reveling in the private chambers of the royal family. Love and respect for the king had vanished. What the people of Paris demanded was the right to vote
and participate in a popular democracy. Working people were
acting independently of other factions, and the bourgeois political leadership became quickly aware of the need to scramble to
maintain order. When they invaded the Tuileries Palace on the
morning of 10 August, the sans-culottes did so in the name of
the people. They saw themselves as patriots whose duty it was to
brush the monarchy aside. The people were now a force to be
reckoned with and feared.
“Terror Is the Order of the Day”
Political factions characterized revolutionary politics from the
start. The terms Left and Right, which came to represent opposite ends of the political spectrum, originated in a description of where people sat in the Assembly in relation to the
podium. Political designations were refined in successive parliamentary bodies. The Convention was the legislative body
elected in September 1792 that succeeded the Legislative
Assembly and had as its charge determining the best form of
government after the collapse of the monarchy. On 21
September 1792, the monarchy was abolished in France; on
the following day the Republic, France’s first, came into being.
Members of the Convention conducted the trial of Louis XVI
for treason and pronounced his sentence: execution by the
guillotine in January 1793.
The various political factions of the Convention were described in terms borrowed from geography. The Mountain,
sitting on the upper benches on the left, was made up of
members of the Jacobin Club (named for its meeting place in
an abandoned monastery). The Jacobins were the most radical element in the National Convention, supporting democratic solutions and speaking in favor of the cause of people in
the streets.
Robespierre and the Reign of Terror. Robespierre’s
chance for real power came when he assumed leadership of
the Committee of Public Safety in July 1793. Faced with the
threat of internal anarchy and external war, the elected body,
the National Convention, yielded political control to the 12man Committee of Public Safety that ruled dictatorially under Robespierre’s direction. The Great Committee, as it was
known at the time, orchestrated the Reign of Terror
(1793–1794), a period of systematic state repression that
meted out justice in the people’s name. Summary trials by
specially created revolutionary tribunals were followed by the
swift execution of the guilty under the blade of the guillotine.
Influenced by The Social Contract (1762) and other writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Robespierre believed that sovereignty resided with the people. For him, individual
wills and even individual rights did not matter when
weighed against the will of the nation. The king was
dead; the people were the new source of political
power. Robespierre saw himself in the all-important Saint-Just on
Democracy,
role of interpreting and shaping the people’s will. His
Education, and
own task was to guide the people “to the summit of its
Terror
destinies.” As he explained to his critics, “I am defending not my own cause but the public cause.” As head of the
Great Committee, Robespierre oversaw a revolutionary machinery dedicated to economic regulation, massive military
mobilization, and a punitive system of revolutionary justice
characterized by the slogan, “Terror Is the Order of the Day.”
Militant revolutionary committees and revolutionary tribunals were established throughout France to identify traitors
and to mete out the harsh justice that struck hardest against
those members of the bourgeoisie perceived as opponents of
the government.
The guillotine became the symbol of revolutionary justice,
but it was not the only means of execution. (See “A Closer
Look: The Guillotine and Revolutionary Justice,” pp. 604–605.)
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Jacobin Ascendancy. Both Girondins, the more moderate revolutionary faction, and Jacobins were from the middle
ranks of the bourgeoisie, and both groups were dedicated to
the principles of the revolution. Although they controlled the
ministries, the Girondins began to lose their hold on the revolution and the war. The renewed European war fragmented
the democratic movement, and the Girondins, unable to control violence at home, saw political control slipping away.
They became prisoners of the revolution when 80,000 armed
Parisians surrounded the National Convention in June 1793.
Girondin power had been eroding in the critical months
between August 1792 and June 1793. A new leader was working quietly and effectively behind the scenes to weld a partnership between the popular movement of sans-culottes and
the Jacobins. He was Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794),
leader of the Mountain and the Jacobin Club. Robespierre was
typical of the new breed of revolutionary politician. Only 31
years old in 1789, he wrote mediocre poems and attended the
local provincial academy to discuss the new ideas when he
was not practicing law in his hometown of Arras. Elected to
the Estates-General, he joined the Jacobin Club and quickly
rose to become its leader. He was willing to take controversial
stands on issues: unlike most of his fellow members of the
Mountain—including his rival, the popular orator GeorgesJacques Danton (1759–1794)—he opposed the war in 1792.
Although neither an original thinker nor a compelling orator,
Robespierre discovered with the revolution that he was an
adroit political tactician. He gained a following and learned
how to manipulate it. It was he who engineered the Jacobins’
replacement of the Girondins as leaders of the government.
IMAGE DISCOVERY
The Death of Marat, 1793,
by Jacques-Louis David
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The revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat was killed in his medicinal
tub (he suffered from a skin disease) by Charlotte Corday, a
critic of the Radical politics and mob violence of the
Revolution. Marat advocated the use of violence to ensure the
success of the revolution. How does the use of lighting and
drapery in this canvas convey the political leanings and attitude of the artist toward his subject? The canvas is dedicated
to Marat (À Marat). What effect does the artist intend by listing his name—David—under Marat’s? Note that the knife
used to commit the attack is juxtaposed with the pen in
Marat’s hand. What is the overall effect of the tableau?
In Lyon, officials of the Reign of Terror had prisoners tied to
stakes in open fields and fired on with cannons. In Nantes, a
Parisian administrator of the new justice had enemies of the
607
revolution chained to barges and drowned in the
estuary of the Loire. The civil war, which raged
most violently in the Vendée in the west of
France, consisted often of primitive massacres
that sent an estimated quarter of a million people to their deaths. The bureaucratized Reign of
Terror was responsible for about 40,000 executions in a nine-month period, resulting in the
image of the republicans as “drinkers of blood.”
The Cult of the Supreme Being, a civic religion without priests or churches and influenced
by Rousseau’s ideas about nature, followed deChristianization. The cathedral of Notre Dame
de Paris was turned into the Temple of Reason,
and the new religion established its own festivals to undermine the persistence of
Catholicism. The cult was one indication of the
Reign of Terror’s attempt to create a new moral
universe of revolutionary values.
Women Excluded. Women remained conspicuously absent from the summit of political
power. After 1793, Jacobin revolutionaries, who
had been willing to empower the popular
movement of workers, turned against women’s
participation and denounced it. Women’s associations were outlawed and the Society of
Revolutionary Republican Women was disbanded. Olympe de Gouges, revolutionary author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman
and Citizen (see p. 601), was guillotined.
Women were declared unfit for political participation, according to the Jacobins, because of
their biological functions of reproduction and
child-rearing. Rousseau’s ideas about family
policy were probably more influential than his
political doctrines. His best-selling books, La
Nouvelle Héloïse (1761) and Émile (1762),
which combined went into 72 editions before
1789, were moral works that transformed people’s ideas about family life. Under his influence,
the reading public came to value a separate and
private sphere of domestic and conjugal values.
Following Rousseau’s lead, Robespierre and the
Jacobins insisted that the role of women as
mothers was incompatible with women’s participation in the political realm.
The Thermidorian Reaction. By attacking
his critics on both the Left and the Right,
Robespierre undermined the support he needed
to stay in power. He abandoned the alliance
with the popular movement that had been so important in
bringing him to power. Robespierre’s enemies—and he had
many—were able to break the identification between political
power and the will of the people that Robespierre had
608
established. As a result, he was branded a traitor by the same
process that he had used against many of his own enemies. He
saved France from foreign occupation and internal collapse,
but he could not save democracy through terror. In the summer of 1794, Robespierre was guillotined. The Reign of Terror
ceased with his death in the revolutionary month of
Thermidor 1794.
The revolution did not end with the Thermidorian
Reaction, as the fall of Robespierre came to be known, but his
execution initiated a new phase. For some, democracy lost its legitimacy. The popular movement was reviled, and sans-culotte
became a term of derision. Jacobins were forced underground.
Price controls were abolished, resulting in extreme hardship for
most urban residents. Out of desperation, in April 1795 the
Jacobins and the sans-culottes renewed their alliance and united
to demand “bread and the Constitution of 1793.” The politics of
bread had never been more accurately captured in slogan. Those
who took to the streets in 1795 saw the universal manhood suffrage of the unimplemented 1793 constitution as the way to
solve their economic problems. But their demands went unheeded; the popular revolution had failed.
The End of the Revolution
The French Revolution
August 1788
5 May 1789
Louis XVI announces meeting of
Estates-General to be held May 1789
Estates-General convenes
17 June 1789
Third Estate declares itself the
National Assembly
20 June 1789
Oath of the Tennis Court
14 July 1789
Storming of the Bastille
20 July 1789
Revolution of peasantry begins
26 August 1789
Declaration of the Rights of Man
and Citizen
5 October 1789
Parisian women march to Versailles;
force Louis XVI to return to Paris
February 1790
Monasteries, convents dissolved
July 1790
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
June 1791
Louis XVI and family attempt to flee
Paris; are captured and returned
September 1791
April 1792
10 August 1792
22 September 1792
January 1793
July 1793
1793–1794
France’s first Constitution
France declares war on Austria
Storming of the Tuileries
Revolutionary calendar implemented
Louis XVI executed
Robespierre assumes leadership of
Committee of Public Safety
Reign of Terror
1794
Robespierre guillotined
1795
Directory rules France
1799
Napoleon overthrows the Directory
and seizes power
ple permanently replaced the monarch’s claim to divine right
to rule. Yet with democracy came tyranny. The severe repression of the terror revealed the pressures that external war
and civil unrest created for the new Republic. The
Thermidorian Reaction and the elimination of Robespierre
as the legitimate interpreter of the people’s will ushered in a
period of conciliation, opportunism, and a search for stability. Ironically, the savior that France found to answer its
needs for peace and a just government was a man of war and
a dictator.
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In the four years after Robespierre’s fall, a new government by
committee, called the Directory, appeared to offer mediocrity,
caution, and opportunism in place of the idealism and action
of the early years of the revolution. No successor to
Robespierre stepped forward to command center stage. There
were no heroes like Lafayette or the great Jacobin orator
Georges-Jacques Danton to inspire patriotic fervor. Nor were
there women like Olympe de Gouges to demand in the public
arena equal rights for women. Most people, numbed after
years of change, barely noticed that the revolution was over.
Ordinary men in parliamentary institutions effectively did the
day-to-day job of running the government. They tried to steer
a middle path between royalist resurgence and popular insurrection. This nearly forgotten period in the history of the
French Revolution was the fulfillment of the liberal hopes of
1789 for a stable constitutional rule.
The Directory, however, continued to be dogged by
European war. A mass army of conscripts and volunteers had
successfully extended France’s power and frontiers. France expelled foreign invaders and annexed territories, including
Belgium, while increasing its control in Holland, Switzerland,
and Italy. But the expansion of revolutionary France was expensive and increasingly unpopular. Military defeats and the corruption of the Directory undermined government control. The
Directory might have succeeded in the slow accretion of a parliamentary tradition, but reinstatement of conscription in 1798
met with widespread protest and resistance. No matter what
their political leanings, people were weary. They turned to those
who promised stability and peace.
In the democratic experiment at the heart of the second
stage of the French Revolution, the sovereign will of the peo-
CHRONOLOGY
The Reign of Napoleon, 1799–1815
THE REIGN OF NAPOLEON,
1799–1815
The great debate that rages to this day about Napoleon revolves around the question of whether he fulfilled the aims of
the revolution or perverted them. In his return to a monarchical model, Napoleon resembled the enlightened despots of
eighteenth-century Europe. In a modern sense, he was also a
dictator, manipulating the French population through a
highly centralized administrative apparatus. He locked French
society into a program of military expansion that depleted its
human and material resources. Yet, in spite of destruction and
war, he dedicated his reign to building a French state according to the principles of the Revolution. Napoleon is one of
those individuals about whom one can say that if he had not
lived, history would have been different. He left his mark on
an age and a continent.
Bonaparte Seizes Power
ISBN 0-558-43641-2
In Paris in 1795 a young, penniless, and unknown military officer moved among the wealthy and the beautiful of Parisian society and longed for fame. Already nicknamed at school “the Little
Corporal” on account of his short stature, he was snubbed because of his background and ridiculed for his foreign accent. His
story is typical of all stories of thwarted ambition. Yet the outcome of his story is unique: within four years, that young man
would become ruler of France. The story of his ascent to power
is also a story of the demise of the revolution.
Napoleon’s Training and Experience. Napoleon
Bonaparte (1769–1821) was a true child of the eighteenth
century. He shared the philosophes’ belief in a rational and
progressive world. Born in Corsica, which until a few
months before his birth was part of the Republic of
Genoa, he received his training in French military
schools. As a youth, he was arrogant and ambitious.
But he could have never aspired to a position of leadThe Rise of
Napoleon
ership in the army during the Old Regime because he
lacked the noble birth necessary for advancement. The
highest rank Napoleon could hope to achieve was that of captain or major.
The revolution changed everything for him. First, it
opened up careers previously restricted by birth, including
those in the military, to those with talent. Second, the revolution made new posts available when aristocratic generals defected and crossed over to the enemy side, both before and after the execution of the king. Finally, the revolution created
great opportunities for military men to test their mettle.
Foreign war and civil war required military leaders devoted
to the revolution. Forced to flee Corsica because he had sided
with the Jacobins, Napoleon and his troops were given the
task of crushing Parisian protesters who rioted against the
Directory in 1795. His victories in the Italian campaign in
609
1796–1797 launched his political career. As he extended
French rule into central Italy, he became the embodiment of
revolutionary values and energy.
The revolutionary wars had begun as wars to liberate humanity in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Yet concerns for power, territory, and riches soon replaced earlier
concerns with defense of the nation and of the revolution.
The aggrandizement was nowhere more evident than in the
Egyptian campaign of 1798, in which Napoleon Bonaparte
headed an expedition whose goal was to enrich France by hastening the collapse of the Turkish Empire, crippling British
trade routes, and handicapping Russian interests in the region. With Napoleon’s highly publicized campaigns in Egypt
and Syria, the war left the European theater and moved to the
East, leaving behind its original revolutionary ideals. The
Egyptian campaign, which was in reality a disaster, made
Napoleon a hero at home.
Napoleon as First Consul. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte
readily joined a conspiracy that pulled down the Directory, the
government he had earlier preserved, and became the First
Consul of a triumvirate of consuls. Napoleon set out to secure
his position of power by eliminating his enemies on the Left
and weakening those on the Right. He guaranteed the security
of property acquired in the revolution, a move that undercut
royalists who wanted to return property to its original owners.
Through policing forces and special criminal courts, law and
order prevailed and civil war subsided. The First Consul
promised a balanced budget and appeared to deliver it.
Bonaparte spoke of healing the nation’s wounds, especially
those opened by de-Christianization during the revolution.
Realizing the importance of religion in maintaining domestic
peace, Napoleon reestablished relations with the pope in 1801
by the Concordat, which recognized Catholicism as the religion of the French and restored the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
Napoleon’s popularity as First Consul flowed from his
military and political successes and his religious reconciliation. He had come to power in 1799 by appealing for the
support of the army. In 1802, Napoleon decided to extend
his power by calling for a plebiscite in which he asked the
electorate to vote him First Consul for life. Public support
was overwhelming. An electoral landslide gave Napoleon
greater political power than any of his Bourbon predecessors. Using revolutionary mechanisms, Napoleon laid the
foundation for a new dynasty.
Napoleon at War with the European Powers
Napoleon was either at war or preparing for war during his
entire reign. He certainly seemed up to the task of defeating
the European powers. His military successes before 1799, real
and apparent, had been crucial in his bid for political power.
By 1802, he had signed favorable treaties with both Austria
and Great Britain. He appeared to deliver a lasting peace and
to establish France as the dominant power in Europe. But the
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■
Still, by 1810 the French leader was master of the Continent.
French armies had extended revolutionary reforms and legal
codes outside France and brought with them civil equality and
religious toleration. They had also drained defeated countries
of their resources and had inflicted the horrors of war with
armies of occupation, forced billeting, and pillage. Napoleon’s
empire extended across Europe, with only a diminished
Austria, Prussia, and Russia remaining independent. He placed
his relatives and friends on the thrones of the new satellite kingdoms of Italy, Naples, Westphalia, Holland, and Spain. It was a
fine empire, Napoleon later recalled in the loneliness of exile.
Napoleon’s empire did not endure, but at its acme, it seemed as
though it would never fall.
The First Empire and Domestic Reforms
Napoleon measured domestic prosperity in terms of the stability of his reign. Through the 1802 plebiscite that voted him
First Consul for life, he maintained the charade of constitutional rule while he ruled as virtual dictator. In 1804, he abandoned all pretense and had himself proclaimed emperor of
the French. Mimicking the rituals of kingship, he staged his
own coronation and that of his wife Josephine at the cathedral
of Notre Dame de Paris. Breaking the tradition set by
Charlemagne, Napoleon took the crown from the hands of
Pope Pius VII (1800–1823) and placed it on his own head.
ISBN 0-558-43641-2
peace was short-lived. In 1803, France embarked on an 11year period of continuous war. Under Napoleon’s command,
the French army delivered defeat after defeat to the European
powers. Austria fell in 1805, Prussia in 1806, and the Russian
armies of Alexander I were defeated at Friedland in 1807. In
1808, Napoleon invaded Spain to drive out British expeditionary forces intent on invading France. The great painter of
the Spanish court, Francisco Goya (1746–1828), produced a
series of etchings, The Disasters of War, that depicted the
atrocities accompanying the Napoleonic invasion. Spain became a satellite kingdom of France, though the conflict continued.
Britain was the one exception to the string of Napoleonic
victories. Napoleon initially considered sending a French fleet
to invade the island nation. Lacking the strength necessary to
achieve that, he turned to economic warfare, blockading
European ports against British trade. Beginning in 1806, the
Continental System, as the blockade was known, erected a
structure of protection for French manufactures in all continental European markets. The British responded to the tariff
walls and boycotts with a naval blockade that succeeded in
cutting French commerce off from its Atlantic markets. The
Continental System did not prove to be the decisive policy
that Napoleon had planned: the British economy was not broken and the French economy did not flourish when faced with
restricted resources and the persistence of a black market in
smuggled goods.
This engraving, from the series
Disasters of War by Francisco Goya,
depicts the horrors of war. The series
was inspired by Napoleon’s invasion
and occupation of Spain from 1808
to 1814.
D ENM
ARK A
ND
NOR
WA
Y
MAP DISCOVERY
North
Sea
SWEDEN
Moscow
A
SSI
GREAT
BRITAIN
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Invasion
of Russia
June, 1812
PRU
Waterloo 18 June 1815
Paris
GRAND
DUCHY OF
WARSAW
CONFEDERATION
OF Leipzig
THE
16 –19 Oct. 1813
RHINE
Austerlitz
RUSSIAN
EMPIRE
2 Dec. 1805
HELVETIAN
REPUBLIC
FRANCE
PO
RT
UG
AL
Italian
Campaign
1796
Peninsular
War
1807–1814
ITALY
LY
Black Sea
RI
A
OTTOMAN
EMPIRE
Elba
Rome
Corsica
NAPLES
SPAIN
SARDINIA
Mediterranea
AUSTRIA
IL
n Se
a
SICILY
Major battles
France in 1799
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Napoleon's additions to
France by 1812
States under Napoleon's
control, 1812
Egypt Campaign
1789 –1799
611
measures. The metric system was
established by 1799. But
Napoleon felt the need to go further: France must be first in scientific research and application. To
assure French predominance,
Napoleon became a patron of science, supporting important work
in the areas of physics and chemistry. Building for the future,
Napoleon made science a pillar in
the new structure of higher education.
The Directory had restored
French prosperity through stabilization of the currency, fiscal reform, and support of industry.
Napoleon’s contribution to the
French economy was the much
needed reform of the tax system.
He authorized the creation of a
central banking system. French
industries flourished under the
protection of the state. The blockade forced the development of
new domestic crops such as sugar
beets and indigo, which became
substitutes for colonial products.
Napoleon extended the infrastructure of roads necessary for
the expansion of national and
European markets.
The New Legal System.
Perhaps his greatest achievement
Napoleon's allies 1812
0
400 Kilometers
was the codification of law, a task
begun under the revolution.
Many of the new articles of the
Napoleon’s Empire
Napoleonic Code were hamNote the expansion of France under Napoleon’s rule. How much of western
mered out in Napoleon’s presand central Europe did Napoleon control by 1812? Why did Great Britain reence, as he presided regularly over
main outside Napoleon’s influence? Why were Prussia, Austria, and Denmark
meetings with legal reformers.
and Norway allies of France in 1812?
Combined with economic reforms, the Napoleonic Code facilitated trade and the development
The Importance of Science and Economic Reforms.
of commerce by regularizing contractual relations and proSecure in his regime, surrounded by a new nobility that he
tecting property rights and equality before the law.
created based on military achievement and talent and that he
The civil laws of the new code carved out a family policy
rewarded with honors, Napoleon set about implementing
characterized by hierarchy and subordination. Married
sweeping reforms in every area of government. Like many of
women were neither independent nor equal to men in ownerthe men of the revolutionary assemblies who had received sciship of property, custody of children, or access to divorce.
entific educations in their youth, he recognized the imporWomen also lacked political rights. In the Napoleonic Code,
tance of science for both industry and war. The revolution
women, like children, were subjected to paternal authority.
had removed an impediment to the development of a naThe Napoleonic philosophy of woman’s place is well captured
tional market by creating a uniform system of weights and
in an anecdote told by Madame Germaine de Staël
0
400 Miles
612
THE CIVIL CODE OF THE CODE NAPOLÉON (1804)
While still First Consul, Bonaparte assembled a group of the country’s leading legal specialists to replace the vast agglomeration of feudal, customary, and canon laws, all with their own courts and procedures, with a unified system based
on Roman law. The Civil Code, along with the Criminal Code, made up the Code Napoléon, and consisted of 2281 articles intended to cover all aspects of civil life from birth to death, all civic aspects relating to family and property, contractual responsibilities, and civil liberties. A unified legal system became the basis for economic development and was
arguably Napoleon’s greatest achievement as ruler of France. The Civil Code replaced the Roman Catholic Church as
having authority over marriage, and although divorce was permitted in the Code, it was outlawed in 1816 and not permitted again until 1884.
Focus Questions
What rights do men enjoy in this passage that women do
not? What are you able to conclude about the rights of
married women who work?
Of the respective rights and duties of parent and children
212. Husband and wife owe each other fidelity, support,
and assistance.
213. A husband owes protection to his wife; a wife owes
obedience to her husband.
214. A wife is bound to live with her husband and to follow
him wherever he deems proper to reside. The husband
is bound to receive her, and to supply her with whatever is necessary for the wants of life, according to his
means and condition.
215.A wife cannot sue in court without the consent of
her husband, even if she is a public tradeswoman or
if there is no community or she is separated as to
property.
216. The husband’s consent is not necessary when the wife
is prosecuted criminally or in a police matter.
217. A wife, even when there is no community, or when she
is separated as to property, cannot give, convey, mortgage, or acquire property, with or without consideration, without the husband joining in the instrument
or giving his written consent.
218. If a husband refuses to allow his wife to sue in court,
the Judge may grant the authorization.
219. If a husband refuses to allow his wife to execute an instrument, the wife can cause her husband to be sum-
Napoleon turned his prodigious energies to every aspect of
French life. He encouraged the arts while creating a police force.
He had monuments built but did not forget about sewers. He
organized French administrative life in a fashion that has endured. In place of the popular democratic movement, he offered
his own singular authority. In place of elections, clubs, and free
associations, he gave France plebiscites and army service. To be
sure, Napoleon believed in constitutions, but he thought they
should be “short and obscure.” For Napoleon, the great problem
ISBN 0-558-43641-2
(1766–1817), a leading intellectual of her day. As the daughter
of Jacques Necker, a Swiss financier and adviser to Louis XVI
at the time of the revolution, she had been taught
Enlightenment ideas from an early age. On finding herself
seated next to Napoleon at a dinner party, she asked him what
was very likely a self-interested question: Whom did he consider the greatest woman, alive or dead? Napoleon had no
name to give her but responded, without pausing: “The one
who has had the most children.”
moned directly before the Tribunal of the First Instance
of the common domicile, and such Tribunal shall grant
or refuse its consent in the Judges’ room after the husband has been heard or has been duly summoned.
220. A wife may, if she is a public tradeswoman, bind herself
without the husband’s consent with respect to what relates to her trade, and in that case she also binds her
husband if there is a community of property between
them. She is not considered a public tradeswoman if
she merely retails the goods of her husband’s business,
but only when she has a separate business.
221. When a sentence has been passed upon a husband
which carries with it a degrading corporal punishment, even if it has been passed by default, a wife, even
of full age, cannot, during the continuance of the punishment, sue in court nor bind herself, unless she has
been authorized by the Judge, who may in such cases
grant the consent without the husband having been
heard or summoned.
222. If a husband has been interdicted or is absent, the
Judge may with proper knowledge of the case, authorize the wife to sue in court or to bind herself.
223. Any general authorization, even given by marriage
contract, is only valid as to the management of the
wife’s property.
224. If the husband is a minor, the authorization of the
Judge is necessary to the wife, either to sue in court or
to bind herself.
225. A nullity based on the want of authorization can only
be set up by the wife, the husband, or the heirs.
226. A wife can make a will without her husband’s consent.
of democracy was its unpredictability. His regime solved that
problem by eliminating choices.
Decline and Fall
Militarily, Napoleon went too far. The first cracks in the French
facade began to show in the Peninsular War (1808–1814) with
Spain, in which Spanish guerrilla tactics proved costly for
French troops. Napoleon’s biggest mistake, the one that shattered the myth of his invincibility, occurred when he decided
to invade Russia in June 1812.
The Invasion of Russia and the Battle of Nations.
Having decisively defeated Russian forces in 1807, Napoleon had
entered into a peace treaty with Tsar Alexander I that guaranteed
Russian allegiance to French policies. Alexander repudiated the
Continental System in 1810 and appeared to be preparing for
his own war against France. Napoleon seized the initiative, sure
that he could defeat Russian forces once again. With an army of
500,000 men, Napoleon moved deep into Russia in the summer
CHRONOLOGY
The Reign of Napoleon
1799
Napoleon establishes consulate, becomes First Consul
1801
Napoleon reestablishes relations
with pope, restores Roman
Catholic hierarchy
1802
Plebiscite declares Napoleon First
Consul for life
1804
Napoleon proclaims himself
Emperor of the French
1806
Continental System implemented
1808–1814
France engaged in Peninsular War
with Spain
ISBN 0-558-43641-2
June 1812
Napoleon invades Russia
September 1812
French army reaches Moscow;
trapped by Russian winter
1813
Napoleon defeated at Battle of
Nations at Leipzig
March 1814
Napoleon abdicates and goes into
exile on island of Elba
March 1815
Napoleon escapes Elba and attempts to reclaim power
15 June 1815
Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo
and exiled to island of Saint Helena
613
of 1812. The tsar’s troops fell back in retreat. It was a strange war,
one that pulled the French army to Moscow like a bird following
bread crumbs. When Napoleon and his men entered Moscow in
September, they found a city in flames. The people of Moscow
had destroyed their own city to deprive the French troops of
winter quarters.
Winter came early in Moscow, Napoleon’s men discovered.
They had left France basking in the warmth of summer and sure
of certain and early victory. They then found themselves facing a
severe Russian winter without overcoats, supplies, or food.
Russia’s strategy has become legendary. The Russians destroyed
grain and shelter that might be of use to the French. Napoleon
and his starving and frostbitten troops were forced into retreat.
The horses of the French cavalry died because they were not
properly shod for cold weather. The French army was decimated. Fewer than 100,000 men made it back to France.
Britain, unbowed by the Continental System, remained
Napoleon’s sworn enemy. Prussia joined Great Britain, Sweden,
Russia, and Austria in opposing France anew. In the Battle of
Nations at Leipzig in October 1813, France was forced to retreat.
Napoleon refused a negotiated peace and fought on until the
following March, when the victorious allies marched down the
streets of Paris and occupied the French capital. Only then did
Napoleon abdicate in favor of his young son, François, the titular king of Rome (1811–1832). Napoleon was exiled to the
Mediterranean island of Elba.
The allies refused to accept the young “Napoleon II” and
supported instead the Bourbon claimant to the throne, the
brother of the guillotined Louis XVI. Naming himself Louis
XVIII (skipping “XVII” in deference to his nephew dead at the
hands of the Revolution), the new king claimed to rule over a
“restored” France.
Napoleon’s Final Defeat: Waterloo. Still it was not quite
the end for Napoleon. While the European heads of state sat
in Vienna trying to determine the future of Europe and
France’s place in it, Napoleon returned from his exile on the
Mediterranean island of Elba to reclaim leadership of France.
On 15 June 1815, Napoleon once again, and for the final time,
confronted the European powers in one of the most famous
military campaigns in history. With 125,000 loyal French
forces, Napoleon seemed within hours of reestablishing the
French Empire in Europe.
But he had underestimated his opponents. The defeat of Napoleon’s forces at Waterloo was decisive.
Napoleon later explained, “Everything failed me just
when everything had succeeded!” He had met his Napoleon’s Exile
Waterloo, and with his defeat a new expression entered to St. Helena
the language to describe devastating, permanent, irreversible downfall. Napoleon’s return proved brief—it lasted only
100 days. An era had come to an end. Napoleon was exiled to the
inhospitable island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic. For the
next six years, Napoleon wrote his memoirs under the watchful
eyes of his British jailers. He died a painful death on 5 May 1821
from what today is believed to have been cancer.
614
■
CONCLUSION
The period of revolution and empire from 1789 to 1815 radically
changed the face of France. A new, more cohesive elite of bourgeois and nobles emerged, sharing power based on wealth and
status. Ownership of land remained a defining characteristic of
both old and new elites. A new state bureaucracy, built on the
foundations of the old, expanded and centralized state power.
The people as sovereign now legitimated political power.
Napoleon at his most imperial never doubted that he owed
his existence to the people. In this sense, Napoleon was the
king of the revolution—an apparently contradictory fusion of
old forms and new ideology. Napoleon channeled democratic
forces into enthusiasm for empire. He learned his lessons
from the failure of the Bourbon monarchy and the politicians
of the revolution. For 16 years, Napoleon successfully reconciled the Old Regime with the new France. Yet he could not
resolve the essential problem of democracy: the relationship
between the will of the people and the exercise of political
power. The picture in 1815 was not dramatically different
from the situation in 1789. The revolution might have been
over, but changes fueled by the revolutionary tradition were
just beginning. The struggle for a workable democratic government continued in France for another century and elsewhere in Europe throughout the twentieth century.
1. To what extent was the French nobility responsible for the
crisis that destroyed the Old Regime?
2. How did commoners, men and women, transform a crisis
of government into a revolution?
3. Why did the leaders of the Revolution resort to a “reign
of terror,” and what effect did that have on the
Revolution?
4. What problems in France and beyond contributed to the
rise of Napoleon?
5. What did Napoleon accomplish in France, and what
brought about his fall?
KEY TERMS
cahiers de doléances, p. 594
conscription, p. 608
Continental System, p. 610
Estates-General, p. 593
Girondins, p. 606
Great Fear, p. 598
Jacobins, p. 606
Napoleonic Code, p. 611
National Assembly, p. 590
Old Regime, p. 593
Reign of Terror, p. 606
sans-culottes, p. 603
Thermidorian Reaction, p. 608
Third Estate, p. 593
DISCOVERING WESTERN CIVILIZATION
ONLINE
You can obtain more information about the French
Revolution and the Napoleonic Era at the Websites listed
below. See also the Companion Website that accompanies
this text, www.ablongman.com/kishlansky, which contains
an online study guide and additional resources.
ISBN 0-558-43641-2
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
“The Song of the End.” Napoleon is depicted in
flight with the whole world chasing him as he
stumbles through a graveyard of bones and fallen
symbols of power. Behind the globe is the masonic symbol of Providence, a shining eye within
a triangle, a symbol also used by the American
founding fathers on the Great Seal.
Suggestions for Further Reading
The French Revolution and the Fall of the
Monarchy
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Creating French Culture
www.loc.gov/exhibits/bnf/bnf0001.html
Different aspects of French culture as a form of elite power
from Charlemagne to Charles de Gaulle are presented by the
Library of Congress. Most of the material is from the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). The author
views the French Revolution as a basically political event that
can only be understood in the context of the changing political culture of the eighteenth century, with special attention to
the use of language and the role of public opinion as a political invention.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Explaining the French
Revolution
Chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/
This site contains an extraordinary archive of key images,
maps, songs, timelines, and texts from the French Revolution.
The site is authored by Professors Lynn Hunt and Jack
Censer, leading scholars in the field of French revolutionary
history.
Château de Versailles
www.chateauversailles.fr/en/
Devoted to the history and images of Versailles, this site provides brief essays about the people and events significant to
court culture during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It also explores the role of Versailles in French culture
after the French Revolution.
Roger Chartier, The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution,
tr. Lydia G. Cochrane (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
1991). Argues for the importance of the rise of critical modes
of thinking in the public sphere in the eighteenth century and
of long-term de-Christianization in shaping the desire for
change in French society and politics.
William Doyle, Origins of the French Revolution (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1988). An excellent introduction devoted to the historiography of the Revolution since 1939, followed by an analysis of the breakdown of the Old Regime
and the struggle for power.
Lynn Hunt, ed., The French Revolution and Human Rights: A
Brief Documentary History (Bedford: St. Martins, 1996). This
edited work contains 38 primary documents on citizenship
and civil rights.
St. Just
history.hanover.edu/texts/stjust.html
Texts by St. Just, a close colleague of Robespierre and a member of the Committee of Public Safety, which orchestrated the
Reign of Terror.
Georges Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789 (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1973). This classic study analyzes the rural
panic that swept through parts of France in the summer of
1789 as a distinct episode in the opening months of the
Revolution that had its own internal logic.
Modern History Sourcebook: Robespierre:
The Supreme Being
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/robespierre-supreme.html
This site contains Robespierre’s words on The Cult of the
Supreme Being and links to other sites.
Colin Lucas, ed., Rewriting the French Revolution (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1991). Eight scholars present interpretations
in the areas of social development, ideas, politics, and religion.
Internet Modern History Sourcebook: French
Revolution
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook13.html
This site will direct students to the Modern History
Sourcebook section of documents on the French Revolution,
Napoleon, and the Napoleonic Wars.
ISBN 0-558-43641-2
615
Napoleon
www.napoleon.org/en/home.asp
Sponsored by the Foundation Napoleon for “the furtherance
of study and research into the civil and military achievements
of the First and Second Empires,” this site is aimed at a
nonacademic audience providing chronologies, essays, images, videos, and links to other sites on Napoleon.
Daniel Roche, The People of Paris (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1987). An essay on popular culture in the
eighteenth century in which the author surveys the lives of
the Parisian popular classes—servants, laborers, and artisans—and examines their housing, furnishings, dress, and
leisure activities.
Timothy Tackett, Becoming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of
the French National Assembly and the Emergence of a
Revolutionary Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1996). This collective biography of the cohort of deputies to
the National Assembly demonstrates that their practical experience was distinct from that of the nobility.
Michel Vovelle, The Fall of the French Monarchy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984). A social history of the
origins and early years of the Revolution, beginning with a
brief examination of the Old Regime and paying special attention to social and economic changes initiated by the
616
Revolution, the role of the popular classes, and the creation
of revolutionary culture.
Jack Censer and Lynn Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity:
Exploring the French Revolution (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001). This book is accompanied by a CD-ROM and provides a unique multimedia
introduction to the French Revolution.
University Press, 1992). Contributors from a variety of disciplines examine the importance of women in the French
Revolution, with special attention to the exclusion of women
from the new politics.
Albert Soboul, The Sans-Culottes (New York: Anchor, 1972).
A study of the artisans who composed the core of popular
political activism in revolutionary Paris.
François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1981). A series of essays challenging many of the assumptions about the causes and outcome of
the Revolution and reviewing its historiography.
David Patrick Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002). Using
archives from several countries, the author examines littleknown aspects of black rebellion from French rule.
Dominique Godineau, The Women of Paris and Their French
Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). A
compelling account of the lives of women revolutionaries.
Godineau presents women’s protests as a mass movement
within the Revolution.
Jean Tulard, Napoleon: The Myth of the Saviour (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984). In this biography of
Napoleon, the Napoleonic Empire is presented as a creation
of the bourgeoisie, who desired to end the Revolution and
consolidate their gains and control over the lower classes.
Patrice Higonnet, Goodness Beyond Virtue: Jacobins During
the French Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1998). The author considers the Jacobin politics as a model
for modern democrats, not to be reduced to the tragedy of
the Terror.
Isser Woloch, Napoleon and His Collaborators: The Making of
a Dictatorship (New York: Norton, 2001). Woloch explains
the success of Napoleon’s regime in terms of the support of
his civilian collaborators.
Michael L. Kennedy, The Jacobin Clubs in the French
Revolution, 1793–1795 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000).
The final volume of Kennedy’s three-volume history of the
Jacobin Club focusing on the period between May 1793 and
August 1795.
Sara E. Melzer and Leslie Rabine, eds., Rebel Daughters:
Women and the French Revolution (New York: Oxford
Isser Woloch, The New Regime: Transformations of the French
Civic Order (New York: Norton, 1994). Woloch’s study emphasizes the break of the new regime from the old, placing
the institutions created or revamped after 1789 in the context
of a new civic order and citizenship.
For a list of additional titles related to this chapter’s topics,
please see http://www.ablongman.com/kishlansky.
ISBN 0-558-43641-2

Civilization in the West

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